If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, and in covering this sport, it’s this: you smack the bully in the mouth.

When the bully comes your way and tries to do his thing, you smack him in the mouth. And when he doesn’t like it, you smack him in the mouth again. And when he doesn’t like it still, you smack him in the mouth.

What am I talking about? In the immediate sense, I’m talking about an Avalanche team that is having the bully, the Anaheim Ducks, come to town tomorrow. My story in the print edition of tomorrow’s Post is the PC version of what I was trying to get across: the Avs have a choice, and that is to be bullied or stand up and smack the bully in the mouth.

The Ducks are going to do a lot of things tonight that I’m sure will have the wine-and-cheese crowd at the Pepsi Center getting up out of their seats for the rare occasion in protest. Guys like Corey Perry and Chris Pronger are going to cross check Peter Forsberg in the back, or give some kind of shot to Paul Stastny or Milan Hejduk. They will either be penalized by the referees or not, but if not, there will be a lot of howling and whining about the injustice of it all. And if that happens, then I guarantee you the Ducks will win the game tonight.

I saw the Avs win the game Tuesday night, but I also saw a couple of the same disturbing things I saw too often in the past: I saw Peter Forsberg getting cheap-shotted a little bit by Vancouver defensemen – then I saw nobody on the Avs making those D-men pay a price for it.
When is somebody on the Avalanche going to stand up for Peter Forsberg, and let teams know: You hit this guy at all, you’re going to pay a SEVERE price? I’m telling you, teams like Anaheim aren’t going to think twice about trying to put him out of the game with a cheap shot. The Avs have to make teams believe that is something that is out of the question to do, for fearing of losing their own best players in return.

That’s why the Avs have to smack them in the mouth. No, I’m not advocating outright violence. I’m not suggesting the Avs turn into a a collection of cowards like Anaheim’s own Todd Bertuzzi, who one day soon will sign his entire life savings over to Steve Moore for his gutless attack nearly four years ago to the day.

What I’m saying is the Avs have to beat the Ducks at their own game, which is to hit themfirst, hit theirstar players first, and get themoff their game – not in the reverse fashion in which Anaheim so thrives.[

To any of the young readers here, and maybe to a lot of the older ones: You will get NOWHERE in this world if you allow yourself to get pushed around. Bullies only respect one thing: the smack in the mouth. Otherwise, they’re going to keep on bullying you.

If you don’t stand up to the bully, you’ll feel like an ineffectual nothing the rest of your life. Bullies only respect you when you stand up to them.

Brian Burke, the Anaheim GM, is a bully. He’s a smart bully, and I like him. But he’s still a bully. He wants to intimidate you. If you let him, he has no respect for you. If you stand up to him, maybe theoretically smack him in the mouth a little, he respects you. Trust me, I know.

That’s why the Avs have no choice but to stand up tonight and smack the bully in the mouth. If they don’t, even no other NHL team does, they’ll be watching the Ducks sip champagne again this spring.

You think I’m crazy for thinking like this? We’ll see after the game tomorrow what happens.

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***Thanks, by the way, for some good feedback, to my last blog about the Wings. It’s all in fun, kids, don’t forget.
I personally love the vituperative responses that come my way, especially from a certain guy who seems to devote an inordinate amount of his life commenting how little my blog seems to mean to him, and how little he cares about anything I say about myself in general.
You gotta love people who actually take the time from their allegedly more important and busy lives to say how unimportant what you write is to them.
And to the Wings bloggers who posted my book on their site: thanks for the free advertising dudes. I look forward to your own books coming out, so I can return the favor.